


A Wiser Fool

by Sorrel



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (polyamory not infidelity), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, minor background Geralt/Yennefer, sad vampires and the witchers who save them from themselves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:47:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23253436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorrel/pseuds/Sorrel
Summary: "What are you doing?" Regis nearly cried, and Geralt looked up at him, impatient as a professor with an inattentive student."Taking a trophy.  They'll never believe it otherwise.  Hold him still, this is going to hurt and I've been bitten enough for one day."
Relationships: Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Comments: 77
Kudos: 416





	A Wiser Fool

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this off and on since LAST JUNE. I really wanted to finish it in time for the Netflix show coming out but life got in the way. What with the quarantine I had a little extra time on my hands, so have some hurt/comfort and sexual healing in these trying times.
> 
> Title is technically from "Vampire Smile" by Kyla La Grange but it's not otherwise lyrically relevant, I just like the phrase.

Regis knew the moment it happened, of course. Dettlaff might have broken his spine, but his hearing remained as acute as ever, and he'd been able to track the progress of the battle nearly as well as if he'd been able to see it with his own eyes. The clash of claw to steel, the rush of wind and wings, the scuff of boots on stone. The end came swiftly enough, for all of that: a sort of wet crunch, like the strike of a butcher's blade, and then the thump of a body hitting stone.

No. Two thumps: one larger, one smaller, following a half-beat later. Bisection. Dettlaff had grown tired, or maybe simply careless, and Geralt, ever the consummate witcher, had cut him in two.

The pause that followed was cavernous, cut by the hollow echo of Geralt's harsh panting breath. Regis scrabbled futilely against the weight above him, strength returning to his limbs but not fast enough, _not fast enough-_

Footsteps approached, a familiar half-silent tread only somewhat more unsteady than usual, and then the chunk of stone pinning him was lifted and tossed away. Regis heaved in a desperate breath as his lungs expanded once more, then fell into a fit of coughing at the haze of dust hovering over the pavilion.

"Easy," Geralt said, "I got you-" and then a gauntleted hand closed around his arm and hauled him to his feet.

His battered body screamed in protest at this abrupt change of direction. Regis clutched fitfully against his middle as he rasped his way through another convulsive cough, feeling his shattered ribs shift and reform within him. Once the bone was clear of his insides he was finally able to take in a full breath—and promptly gagged at the reasty murk emanating from his friend.

"Yeah, sorry," Geralt said, and stepped away, much to Regis's relief. He'd heard tales of witcher potions that poisoned the blood, but he'd never had cause to encounter such a thing during their travels together. It felt like a damn fist in his lungs even from two paces out; he could only imagine what it had done to poor Dettlaff's insides. Something painful, to be sure—but not permanent. No silver sword or petty alchemy could vanquish this monster.

Only Regis could do that.

A groan drew their attention, and as one he and Geralt turned to regard the bloody ruin that was all that was left of Regis's dearest friend. He'd known, of course, that Dettlaff had shifted away from his human seeming—had listened with despair to the wet shift of bone and flesh during his myriad transformations—but still, he would never have predicted _this._ Dettlaff looked every inch the Beast they had named him, without even the most nominal concession to humanity. He looked more the monster than the hungriest of their lesser cousins.

And Geralt had, just as Regis thought, indeed cut him in half. Regis flinched away from the sight, the wet gleam of bone and lymph in the moonlight, but in truth Dettlaff was already starting to reform. A low wet grumble of a moan issued continuously from his torn throat as blood hissed and bubbled between the two halves of his severed torso, his claws scrabbling against stone in minute scraping pushes as he quite literally pulled himself together.

" _Gods,_ " Regis said, the word punched out of him on an exhale. "This is…"

"Yeah," Geralt said grimly. He was leaning on his sword, apparently uncaring of the way the point scraped unpleasantly against the cobblestones. "Surprised the hell out of me, too."

"I can only imagine." Dettlaff, gods, _Dettlaff,_ with his graceful hands and deep warm voice, reduced to this… this _monstrosity_. Regis's chest ached with a pain far deeper than bruises and shattered bones. "Well. It doesn't matter now, I suppose. You may leave him to me."

Geralt shifted in faint protest, a creak of leather and steel and discomfort. "I can't let-"

His hesitation _now,_ after everything, was an obscenity that brought a snarl to Regis's throat. "I insist," he told him, keeping his voice level with great effort, and urged Geralt away somewhat less gently than the bonds of friendship would demand. It was unfair of him, he knew—none of this was _Geralt's_ fault—but it was hard not to hate him, just a little, for being the catalyst that brought this moment home. If he hadn't taken the contract- If he hadn't found Syanna- If he wasn't so _bloody_ good at what he did, reducing his dear friend to little more than two pieces of meat on the bloody stone-

-if he wasn't so incredibly fucking _stubborn_ , shrugging away Regis's hand with a look more poisonous than his potions. "Screw your insistence," he said flatly. "You think I don't know what you're about? I'm not going to let you break your fucking heart over the likes of him."

Regis closed his eyes, the cruel sweetness of Geralt's loyalty another dagger in his battered heart. "Please, Geralt," he said, low. "If you have ever borne any love for me at all, _please_. Just go."

"No," Geralt said, almost kindly, and then _he_ was the one shoving _Regis,_ moving past him like he was of no more consequence than a peasant on the road. He knelt next to Dettlaff's ruined, bestial form, either not noticing or more likely not caring about the way Dettlaff shifted minutely, instinctively revulsed by the poison that leaked from Geralt's lacerated flesh. He needn't worry, regardless: his sword had struck true, and Dettlaff could no more escape in that moment than Regis himself could fly to the moon.

"Geralt," Regis sighed, his voice half-lost to the moan of the wind in the trees. "What do you hope to gain from this pointless-"

Geralt interrupted, a habit Regis had absolutely no grounds to find so irritating and yet did anyway. "You still have your ring?"

It was so far from anything he'd expected that Regis could only gape at his friend, the great swelling well of grief temporarily shoved aside in favor of unalloyed confusion. "My- my _ring?_ What could you possibly-"

"Syanna," Geralt said, as if that was any explanation. Beneath him, Dettlaff regained enough of himself to hiss at the sound of her name. It earned a dispassionate, measuring look, but Geralt must have determined there was no threat, as he continued without raising his blade. "She'll recognize the markings, at least. Do you have it with you?"

Regis could only blink down at his friend. "I- Of course I do, but what does that-"

"Give it here." He rolled Dettlaff onto his back, ignoring the crunch of breaking cartilage as wings were crushed under his limp weight, and gestured impatiently at Regis with the tip of his sword. "Take his arm, hold it out. Flat to the ground."

"What are you _doing_?" Regis nearly cried, and Geralt looked up at him, impatient as a professor with an inattentive student.

"Taking a trophy. They'll never believe it otherwise. Hold him still, this is going to hurt and I've been bitten enough for one day."

Belatedly, it occurred to Regis that Geralt was planning to _spare Dettlaff._ The thought seemed so fantastical as to be nearly impossible to contemplate, but Regis was no fool: he fell to his knees next to his friend and did as Geralt instructed. Dettlaff muttered with pain, and Regis shushed him absently as he knelt astride his torso, a knee on either shoulder. Geralt looked at him, waiting for his nod, and then brought down his silver sword with a sick-sounding _crunch._

Dettlaff _roared,_ spasming upwards with agony, but Regis rode the movement with every ounce of strength in his battered body, keeping him pinned to the stone. Geralt let out a harsh breath, almost a sigh, and then levered himself to his feet, Dettlaff's severed hand held between the fingers of his blood-soaked glove.

"Ring," he said, and Regis hastened to fish it out, rolling gracelessly off his friend in the process. Geralt gave his blade a perfunctory wipe on the tail of his coat and sheathed it, holding out his free hand in silent demand. Regis obligingly deposited it, and Geralt proceeded to unceremoniously shove it onto the most intact of Detlaff's still-twitching fingers. He studied his grisly prize for a moment, expression unreadable even to Regis's studied gaze, then nodded sharply to himself. "Not his head, but it'll do. You got a cloak?"

"I- what?" He felt like a ship tossed about in a storm, unsure of which way was up and more than a little underwater. "A _cloak_? Why would I-"

"Nevermind, you can use his." Geralt jerked his chin at a heap of shredded fabric—deposited, Regis could only conclude, when Dettlaff had shed the constraints of his humanoid form in favor of his current bestial appearance. "Cut his wings and bundle him up tight, he'll pass for human so long as nobody looks close."

Regis rubbed a weary hand across his face, feeling the grit of shattered stone against his skin. His fingers, he realized belatedly, were still trembling. For that matter, so was the rest of him. Adrenaline, exhaustion… not to mention Dettlaff's fist in his bloody _spine._ Vampires were hardy creatures by any measure, but he hadn't been at his best even before all this started.

"Geralt, as much as I hate to disappoint you, I'm fairly certain my poor mount would throw us both in an instant, cloak or no cloak," he said tiredly. "Horses aren't fond of my kind at the best of times, must less…" He gestured vaguely at Dettlaff's reeking, blood-soaked, entirely inhuman form. "This."

"So take Roach," Geralt said, as casually as if he hadn't once come nearly to blows with Angoulême when she'd 'accidentally' mounted his mare one morning. "Smell won't bother him, he's hauled worse."

Well, he certainly couldn't argue that, considering Geralt's slightly unsavory habit of strapping his trophies to his saddle. "What about you?"

"I'll take Syanna's horse. Not like she needs it." Geralt picked up his satchel from where he'd dropped it before the fight, tucking away his grisly trophy and slinging it over his shoulder as he talked. "Listen, you can't go back to the cemetery, okay? Head north, stay off the roads. If you hurry you should be able to make it before the guards start checking for stragglers."

"Make it _where_? Even if I can coax him back to a human form—which will be no small feat, I can assure you—who would be fool enough to take in a pair of blood-soaked strangers after a night such as this?"

Geralt gave a slightly rueful tilt to his head that made no sense until he said, "Well, me, for one," and tossed him something that Regis's exhausted reflexes only barely stirred enough to snatch from the air. It proved to be a key: small, ornate, made of brass and warm from Geralt's body. "Got this fancy new house and no servants to bother you, this time of night. Put him upstairs, nobody will look for you. You'll be safe."

Gratitude and something a great deal more complex fought a brief but pitched battle in the back of Regis's throat, leaving him uncharacteristically tongue-tied. "You're too kind, my friend," he managed, after a moment. "I couldn't possibly impose in such a manner."

"You get yourself caught by the ducal guard and I gotta rescue you, _that'd_ be a fucking imposition. This is the safer bet." Geralt's smiles were few and far between at the best of times; this one, fractional and exhausted as it was, might have been the sweetest yet. "Take the damn room, Regis. It's a bed, not an offer of marriage."

Regis looked at the key in his hand and then, slowly, lifted his gaze to his friend's face. This night's toils had taken their toll on even his incredible endurance; his pale skin was white as bone, and his veins were heavy and dark with the potions he'd taken before battle. His handsome face was smeared with blood and bile, his beard caked with all manner of filth and gore: in the unforgiving moonlight, he looked barely more human than poor Dettlaff. But even with his golden eyes turned to black pits in his face, his steady gaze was the same as ever.

"You're still a fool, Geralt of Rivia," Regis said, and even he could hear the tremble in his voice. "But a noble one."

"Not that noble," Geralt said dryly. "I have a few things to say to him, and I'm too damn tired to chase you down to do it. Once you get him to Corvo Bianco, you do whatever you need to keep him there. _Whatever_ you need. We've got a conversation to have, me and him. You going to be good with that?"

Involuntarily, Regis's hands tightened around Dettlaff's shoulders, but he nodded. "Yes, of course. I'll do whatever I can."

The hard line of Geralt's shoulders softened, and it was only then that Regis realized how stiffly he'd been holding himself. Bracing for another blow, another betrayal, another nightmarish twist in this endless hell of a night. He dropped his free hand to Regis's shoulder, giving him a wordless squeeze: eloquent, as always, in his silence.

"What about you?" Regis asked, after a moment. "Will you be alright?"

Geralt shrugged. "I'm always alright. Still here, aren't I?"

Even with everything that had happened this night, Regis couldn't help but laugh weakly at that sally. "You say that so confidently, my dear witcher—and yet I'm not the only one who's returned from the grave."

"Wasn't a vampire that killed me," Geralt said, smiling with just his eyes. "Wasn't a duchess, either. I'm probably safe."

"I don't think it works that way," Regis said doubtfully, but he reached up and put his hand over Geralt's, giving it an answering squeeze of acknowledgement. "Go, then. Soonest gone soonest returned, and all that."

"Here's hoping," Geralt muttered, and stepped away at last, taking with him both the oppressive reek of his poisoned blood and the comforting warmth of his body. "Don't worry 'bout me, Regis. Just get him out of here before the duchess's men show up. Might be soon, if that ribbon took Syanna back to the palace."

At the sound of her name Dettlaff stirred and hissed, baring his monstrous fangs in petulant temper. Regis pressed a palm to his chest, holding him down to the stone with worrying ease. "I shan't tarry, believe me."

"Good. And Regis?"

"Yes?"

"For fuck's sake, don't let him kill anyone else."

Regis smiled grimly down at the twisted, trembling body of his oldest friend. "I shall certainly do my best."

###### 

Dawn was starting to crest over Toussaint's rolling hills when Regis heard footsteps on the floor below. He roused himself from his half-doze, checking reflexively on Dettlaff's still form as he'd done a half-hundred times that night already. Upon determining that his charge was unlikely to rouse anytime soon, he gathered himself and padded silently down the steps to the foyer.

Geralt was nowhere to be seen, but even had his scent not been thick on the air, the trail of discarded armor was hardly subtle. Regis followed it into the kitchen, where he found his friend stripped to the waist in front of a kettle and a polished serving-tray, painstakingly attempting to scrub away the night's labors.

He looked better, for a certain definition of the term: his eyes in the mirrored surface of the serving-tray were back to their usual burnished gold, and his skin had lost both the chalky undertone and that alarming pulsating darkness to his veins. But stripped bare like this it was also easy for Regis to see that his back was mottled dark with bruising and riddled with a dozen small cuts, all reeking of poisoned blood. The hole in his shoulder had been bandaged, at least, but clumsily, likely by his own inexpert hands. Fresh blood was already seeping sluggishly through.

_Oh, Geralt._

"You should have had the duchess's healers see to that," he said, instead of any one of the hundred things he wanted to say, platitudes Geralt would disdain and gratitude he would only shrug away, uncomfortable. "It needs stitching."

"It's fine," said Geralt—who had, of course, heard Regis coming. "Tomorrow's soon enough."

Regis's heart clenched at the slight slur in Geralt's voice, a greater weakness than he would normally allow himself to show. "You'll have to allow me to disagree, my friend. Which among us is the qualified physician?"

Never fond of three words when none would suffice, Geralt merely grunted his disagreement and dipped his rag into the steaming kettle for another pass.

Regis sighed. "You are _ridiculous,_ " he informed him, flexing his fingers around the strap of his satchel like a dissatisfied cat. "When did you get so stubborn? You were quick enough to avail yourself of my expertise before, as I recall, and you're a far sight past an aching knee _now._ Why, you're bleeding all over the-"

It was astonishing, Geralt's unerring sense of aim. Even with such a poor mirror as a silver serving-tray, with a target who'd no reflection of his own, he still managed to catch Regis's gaze with flawless ease.

"-floor," Regis finished weakly, and looked down at the toes of his boots. "Ah."

Geralt sighed. "Listen, Regis-"

"No, no, I understand completely." Even he could hear the strain in his voice, and he swallowed hard, trying to smooth out the awkwardness that hung like a miasma in the air, as thick as the smell of poisoned blood. "Please allow me to assure you, however, that you needn't the least bit of worry. Even if I were so little in control of myself to be tempted by a friend in pain, your potions are _quite_ effective at removing any desire on that front, believe me."

"Yeah, I know." Geralt splashed water on his face and then shook his head like a dog, sending droplets of water flying about the room, and turned. He settled back against the table, arms folded across a chest that was, if anything, even more bruised and battered than his back, and cocked his head. "That's why I said tomorrow."

Regis blinked at him. "I'm sorry?"

"Dose I took, you don't need to ingest to get hit," Geralt said, as if Regis couldn't have figured that out himself. "Puked my guts out a couple times and took some White Honey to clear the rest, but it'll still be hours yet before I'm clean. Last thing I need is you getting sick, too."

That was-

He was so-

"You are _just_ as pointlessly self-sacrificial as ever," Regis declared, rolling up his sleeves rather than do something foolish, like grab his friend by his battered shoulders and shake him senseless. "And just as arrogant, to boot. For your information, your potions aren't so unbearable as all that—and certainly less of an irritant than looking at that shoddy patch job you call a bandage. Take it off at once, and let me see to you properly."

"You haven't gotten any less bossy, either," Geralt said, but there was something not unlike a smile in the low grit of his voice, and he was already reaching up to tear away the bandage. The worn cloth gave like wet parchment under the deceptive strength of his calloused fingers, and the rank stench of his poisoned blood rolled out to fill the room.

Regis didn't allow himself to flinch, though he dearly wanted to; there was no surer way to ensure Geralt would scorn his care. The blood oozing down Geralt's shoulder was dark as oil and unnaturally thick—though not as thick as it had been hours before, which likely contributed to the ever-increasing volume seeping from the tattered edges of the bite. Regis ignored it—and the miasma of death it produced, so dense around Geralt that it was almost palpable—and guided his friend to a stool, taking up the cloth he'd been using to clean himself. "You're quite lucky I came along, you know."

"In more ways than one," Geralt said, and that was _definitely_ a smile this time.

"Yes, well." Regis cleared his throat and set to wiping away the worst of the gore, ignoring the crawling sensation in his flesh. He'd endured worse for less worthy causes. "My life's been quite dull until recently, you know. It needed a spot of livening-up."

"Happy to help." Geralt tipped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, to all appearances entirely surrendering himself to Regis's care. "Although next time, maybe we should just get a drink."

"I think I can manage that," Regis said, and returned hastily to his work before Geralt could note his answering smile.

Geralt had ever been the most stoic of patients—absent Regis's homemade, which loosened the tongue of the mightiest of men—and today proved no different. Geralt even held himself still as Regis swabbed down the length of the wound with a cleansing solution, though it must have stung like the very devil on his torn and tattered flesh. It was only when Regis set to work with his needle that Geralt broke his silence to ask—if through somewhat gritted teeth—"How's Dettlaff?"

"Insensate," replied Regis, though he had no doubt Geralt knew that already; he was just trying to distract himself. Geralt never would have allowed himself this vulnerability—shirtless, unarmored, wounds on display—if he was any less than certain that the monster remained safely vanquished. "And likely to remain that way for some time. The energy required to reform himself was enormous."

Geralt's eyes, half-slitted against the discomfort of the stitching, studied him keenly. "Guessing he didn't manage it on an empty stomach."

"Yes, well," Regis said, and thanked his task for keeping his hands too busy for a betraying tug of his collar. "Fortunately, he had strength enough to return to his human seeming before we ran into a ducal patrol on the other side of the river."

Geralt hissed, more from the news than the press of needle to his flesh, though Regis could feel his skin shudder like a horse twitching away a fly. "I thought I told you-"

"-to stay off the roads, yes, I know, but there aren't many bits of wilderness left around Flovine to conceal ourselves. And the locals were spread into the vineyards, searching for monsters."

"Idiots."

"I shan't argue with you there, but with things as they were, I thought it safer to ride through town than risk appearing suspicious. My gamble paid off: we _were_ discovered, but given our general state of dishevelment, the guards assumed we were victims of a vampire attack."

Geralt snorted. "Suppose that's true enough. Technically."

"Hm, yes, my thought as well. Given the circumstances it seemed prudent to allow the technicality to stand."

"Yeah, no kidding. Surprised they let you leave."

"I think they would have liked to see to our protection," Regis replied cheerfully, "but I told them I was riding but a few miles up the river, and a look at your Roach persuaded them. He's flashier than your usual mount, you know. How _did_ you come by him?"

"Emhyr."

Regis's hands fell still, his eyebrows climbing his forehead. "The emperor?"

"You know any other?" Catching sight of Regis's disbelieving look, Geralt let out a whuff of laughter. "It's a long story," he said, "better told over a bottle. And we're not talking about me, anyway. You run into any other trouble?"

"Not a bit of it," Regis said, returning to his work. "In the interest of avoiding another such encounter we crossed the river the old-fashioned way, a little north of the Blessure, and rode up through the hills."

Geralt grunted, approval in the sound. "B.B. catch you?"

"No, I took the liberty of ensuring his peaceful slumber."

"Good," Geralt sighed, and let his head loll back once more against the wall. "That's good."

"What about you?" Regis said, after a moment. "How did you fare at the palace?"

"Duchess didn't even know Syanna had gone missing, if you can believe it. Apparently the teleport took her back into the book."

"A convenient spell indeed."

"Tell me about it. Damien'll probably fill her in sooner or later, but I wouldn't be too worried. She's alive, after all, and the duchess has her trophy."

"Indeed," Regis said neutrally. "And she had no questions about the provenance of your prize?"

"Nope."

Regis studied him from beneath his lashes, finding himself unaccountably wary of such an easy answer. "Maybe it's just the length of this night's toils, my friend, but I find it hard to believe it was so simple. You truly think she believed your ruse?"

"I think if she understood how little a severed limb slows one of you down, she wouldn't have been so quick to declare war in the first place," Geralt said, somewhere between wry and grim. "And anyway, it wasn't a ruse. Everything I told her was the truth."

"Oh?"

"Well, I did cut him down," Geralt said, in his most reasonable tone of voice. "And I did think Syanna was more likely to recognize the ring than what was left of the beast. And whaddaya know, I was pretty sure there wouldn't be a body left if they went back to look."

Regis had to smile at that. "We're both availing ourselves of technicalities this night, I see."

"People keep telling me I'm a shit liar, figured I'd work with what I have." Geralt shrugged his undamaged shoulder. "Besides, I'm alive. That's usually pretty good evidence that the other guy isn't."

"Only to one who's never met you, my friend."

"Mhm. Maybe." Geralt sighed deeply, his chest rising and falling under Regis's hands. "How is he, Regis? Honestly."

"Honestly? I don't know. I truly don't." Regis looked down at his hands rather than meet Geralt's too-perceptive gaze. "He hasn't yet regained his capability for speech, but I doubt very much his ire has faded. How could it? You and I are well accustomed to treachery, in some form or another, but for all Dettlaff's years he's new to betrayal. Forgiveness isn't something he's had much opportunity to practice."

Geralt muttered something that sounded suspiciously like _no fucking kidding._ Regis decided to let that one pass.

"But for all his temper—which is, I'm sure, formidable, even now—I can at least assure you that he's in no shape to do anything about it. Nor will he be, for quite some time."

There was a coiled stillness to Geralt's body under his hands. "You sure about that?"

"Quite sure. I promise you, I would not have left his side if I had even the smallest question in that regard, not even for the sake of my favorite patient." He tied off the last stitch and then set to cutting the ends with the dagger Geralt silently handed him. "I told you once of my ignominious death at the hands of an aggrieved peasantry, did I not? Staked, beheaded, and buried, all with ordinary wood and steel, and it still took me half a century to regenerate enough to free myself. Dettlaff, he… He's my age, more or less, and in some respects the stronger, I shan't argue that-"

"You're still smarter," pointed out the witcher, amusement in his rough voice.

"-yes, thank you, your support is appreciated… I only mean to say that Geralt, you… You cut him in _half._ " Try as he might, Regis couldn't entirely keep the horror from his voice. "With an anointed—not to mention enchanted!—blade, after first poisoning him and filling his wounds with silver. He will recover, in time—I've some experience in that arena, as it happens—but it will be… quite some while before he'll be able to so much as stand unaided, much less pose any kind of threat."

Geralt let out a short, sharp breath through his nose. "If you expect me to apologize for doing my job-"

"No!" Regis did look up at that, hand pressed to Geralt's chest as if to halt the thought stillborn. "No, my friend, I meant nothing of the sort. I only meant to say that you were very… thorough, with your victory. Not quite as thorough as that blasted sorcerer, mind you, but more than sufficient to prevent any… immediate unpleasantness."

Geralt grunted. "Pretty damn unpleasant to Beauclaire, and he didn't so much as lay a claw on the place himself," he pointed out, not unkindly.

"True enough," Regis admitted. He certainly couldn't argue the point. "But the attack ceased, did it not? He kept his word and withdrew his forces when Syanna was brought before him."

"Could be he's reconsidering that, seeing as how Syanna got away. As I recall he had some words on the subject while he was trying to rip my throat out."

"That as may be, but his bonds of mastery are born of blood: once released, he cannot summon them again. And those that came to his call willingly… can't, anymore."

Regis supposed that loss would make itself felt in time, too; right now he was too tired and sick at heart to grieve for Dettlaff's pack along with all the rest. Viris and Mumauk and Johann, brave Dea and moon-touched Vasquez and sweet little Odalette—all of his little cousins, who'd watched over him so carefully during his convalescence, who'd been so happy to welcome him as one of their own. All lost, now, to the terrible flame of Dettlaff's vengeance.

"He is alone, maimed, and under my guard. No others will come to his aid."

Geralt studied him for a moment, and Regis feared that perhaps his own feelings had been too evident, but his friend's face showed only sympathy. Regis thought he might ask about it—gods forbid, ask how many had died by his hand, which Regis truly did not want to recount—but Geralt only said, "So the city's safe enough for tonight, that's what you're telling me?"

"To the best of my ability to ensure such a thing—yes, I rather think the danger has passed."

"Then fuck it," Geralt decided, and allowed his head to fall back against the wall once more. "Tomorrow can take care of itself."

Regis couldn't help but smile. "Is that temperance I hear? From Geralt of Rivia? Never did I think to see the like."

"Fuck off," Geralt said, good-naturedly. "I've had a hard day."

The reminder sobered him. "Only a fool would argue that, my friend." Regis took a roll of bandages and knelt next to the stool, urging Geralt upright with a gentle hand on his ribs. "And for what it may be worth, this humble vampire believes that you have risen to the challenges before you with admirable grace and nobility." He looked downwards, focusing on the careful wind of fabric rather than on his friend's dear face. "I am very lucky to have met you, you know. Luckier still to have you stand at my side."

Geralt's palm landed on the back of his neck, blood-hot and rough with callous. "I'm the lucky one," he said, smiling not just with his eyes now but with the tilt of his head, the softness of his voice, the confessional slope of his shoulders: the full subtle force of a witcher's joy made manifest. "Lucky you stayed. Lucky you cared. Luckiest of all that you made it back."

Regis closed his eyes and allowed himself to lean into the steady warmth of Geralt's grip. "I'd do it all again, you know," he said, quietly but with every ounce of sincerity he had to offer. "I wouldn't change a thing."

After all, Geralt had borne up under the weight of his faith, every time Regis had recklessly stacked it upon him. He had believed that Geralt wouldn't harm him, and Geralt hadn't. He'd believed that Geralt would allow him to stay, and Geralt had—and had made a comrade of him besides, taking his counsel and sleeping at his back at night. He had believed that Geralt would save Ciri, and they had, though the cost had been great. And this week Regis had laid his blood-brother's life and freedom against a witcher's conscience and never once doubted which one would win, because Geralt might have had a cat's eyes but he had a dog's loyalty: once he'd taken you into his heart, there was nothing he wouldn't do to keep you whole.

He was very much like a vampire in that regard, in fact.

"Dunno that I could really say the same," Geralt said thoughtfully. His thumb moved along the jut of bone behind Regis's ear, an absent little movement that nevertheless sent warmth flooding into Regis's chest. "I've got a lot of regrets."

Regis couldn't help but laugh. "You and me both, my friend."

Geralt ducked his chin a little, catching Regis's gaze with his. Only when he was sure Regis was listening did he say, deliberately: "One less now, though."

"I was... very glad to see you, as well," Regis said, through a throat gone tight with all the things they'd left unsaid. It was a confession so laughably imprecise in magnitude as to verge entirely on falsehood, but he knew Geralt would understand regardless, fluent as he was in the language of silence. And, of course, he did: eyes crinkled up with quiet pleasure, he gave Regis's neck a quiet squeeze of acknowledgement, then nodded and let Regis return to his work.

Regis made quick work of the bandage, tying it off with practiced fingers, and then turned his attention to the other wounds. None but the bite were deep enough to require stitching—a few of the most shallow were already showing signs of healing, remarkably—but he cleaned them anyway, and treated them with a numbing salve, and finally wrapped the whole mess of his torso with linen, as much to protect his sheets as to fend off infection. And then, the moment he was done, he went directly to the kettle, hastily submerging his hands in the near-boiling water without even bothering to remove his gloves first.

He kept his back to Geralt, trying to hide the relief, but of course his friend saw right through him. "'Not so unbearable as all that,' huh?" came his gravel voice, low and amused. "Liar."

"It was perhaps a bit more intense than expected," admitted Regis. He peeled off his gloves and picked up a bar of soap, not entirely able to hide the shudder of relief as the harsh lye scrubbed away the last traces of the poisoned blood. "But well within my ability to bear, I assure you."

"Don't like you hurting on account of me."

"Don't be dramatic, dear witcher. It was mild discomfort at worst."

"Don't like that either." The stool creaked under Geralt's weight, and out of the corner of his eye Regis could see that he'd folded his arms over his chest. "And you call _me_ self-sacrificial."

"I'll endeavor not to make it a competition, if it makes you feel better." He gave his gloves a quick rinse and then wrung them out, draping them carefully on the edge of the shelf to dry. "Now, then, let's get you to bed. Tomorrow will come soon enough as it is."

###### 

It wasn't that simple, of course. First Geralt had to assuage his ferocious metabolism, as he hadn't eaten anything at the palace—"Couldn't've kept it down anyway," he said, when Regis glared at him—and when that task was accomplished, the sun was already rising and his majordomo needed to be seen to. Luckily Barnabas-Basil was a true Toussaintois bodyman, and did not so much as bat at eye at Geralt's limping falsehood about a sick and wounded refugee who needed absolute privacy to recover. Whatever truth he might have suspected behind his master's awkward excuse was hidden behind his blank lenses and placid face, and he assured Geralt that his guest would remain undisturbed until he indicated otherwise. Then, and only then, did Geralt allow Regis to lead him to his room.

Once inside, he staggered straight to his bed and toppled backwards like a felled tree. Boots still flat on the floor—and with very little indication he intended to change that—he turned his face into the furs and let out a groan of satisfaction so heartfelt that it was almost carnal.

Only to grunt a moment later and haul himself vaguely up onto his elbows. "Shit, I didn't think. Where are you sleeping? If Dettlaff's in the spare-"

Regis held back a sigh by sheer force of will. "I'll be fine. You needn't see to my comfort."

"You can use this one, if you don't mind trading off," Geralt offered. "Give me a couple hours and I can-"

"If you're up before sunset I will sedate you myself," Regis informed him calmly, _quite_ at the end of his patience, and shoved him flat once more. Geralt let him do it—Regis didn't fool himself that it was anything but _let,_ even in his diminished state—and let out a bark of laughter, harsh and metallic and oh so very dear.

"I take back what I said earlier," he said, smiling. "You're actually bossier than I remembered. If that's even possible."

"And you're somehow more stubborn, yet still I contrive to manage somehow." Regis knelt down to examine Geralt's boots, thankfully absent the usual greaves and secured only with sturdy traveller's knots. "Geralt, you haven't slept for nearly two days. During which time you have ridden from one end of Toussaint to the other— _multiple_ times—fought your way through a veritable horde of my lesser cousins, visited a fairy-tale realm, and defeated—in single combat!—a creature I am in a position to know should be well beyond even your impressive capabilities."

Geralt rolled his eyes—Regis couldn't see them to confirm, but he _knew_ it was happening—and flung his arm over his face. "Your point?"

Regis set aside the first boot and set to work on the laces of the second. "The point, my _dear_ witcher, is that you need rest. Real, proper rest, not a 'couple' hours of fitful napping or a morning of meditation, but a full day's sleep. At least eight hours, preferably twelve, though I'll settle for ten if you're inclined to be stubborn, which—having had your acquaintance longer than a passing moment—I'm morally certain you _are_."

"Not single," Geralt muttered into the crook of his elbow.

"I beg your pardon?"

Geralt dropped his arm to the side and sat up, retrieving his foot from Regis's grasp. "I _said,_ " he repeated, attending to his socks himself, "that it wasn't single combat. Or did you think I forgot you diving in there when Dettlaff tried to take a chunk out of me?"

Regis had, actually, somewhat hoped that Geralt would, if not _forget_ that part of the encounter, at least be tactful enough not to mention it. He hadn't exactly shown himself in the best light, after all. First his rash promise to ensure Syanna's safety—fulfilled only by accident, and none of his doing at all—and then his equally ill-conceived attack, ultimately accomplishing little more than his own ignominious defeat. Apparently reckless charges into battle ending with a painful introduction to the nearest piece of architecture was becoming something of a _habit_ around Geralt, and this time he didn't even have the excuse of being blood-drunk for the first time in a century to explain his carelessness.

"Yes, well." Bereft of a task for his hands, he avoided Geralt's gaze and fiddled with his cuffs instead. "I was still hoping Dettlaff would come to his senses, I suppose. It's… very difficult to harm one with whom you share a bond of blood—deliberately, that is. I… thought it might deter him somewhat. I suppose I underestimated the depths of his rage."

Geralt said nothing, but in that nothing Regis could hear all manner of things left unsaid. How difficult it had been to strike Dettlaff, even with his friend lost to fury. How it had hurt him, almost more than the injury itself, to realize Dettlaff hadn't suffered the same hesitation in turn. And what it would have cost him to finish it, once and for all, had Geralt not stepped in to save him once more.

"Anyway!" Realizing he was still kneeling before Geralt like some kind of supplicant, Regis cleared his throat and stood. "All's well that ends well, as they say, and as we all survived the night you've more than earned your rest. There's quite a comfortable chaise in your guest room, I believe I'll avail myself of that and keep an eye on your intemperate guest so that you can get some… Geralt, what _are_ you doing?"

Geralt, who'd grabbed him by the wrist before he could complete his turn to leave, glanced up from his palm. "Checking for blisters," he said solemnly, in direct contrast to the mischief Regis saw glinting in his eyes.

"I wouldn't hold your breath for that search," Regis said dryly. "I told you, it was nothing worse than some momentary discomfort. You've seen me handle live coals, my friend. Expecting any lasting injury from even your fine alchemical skills is like-" Regis had rolled his eyes skyward, the better to express his (manufactured) irritation with his friend's tomfoolery, and so was taken entirely by surprise by the sudden wash of hot breath against his palm. "Is like-"

Geralt smiled up at him and pressed another kiss to Regis's hand, this one to the ball of his thumb. "You were saying?"

" _Geralt._ " Regis felt like he'd been set aflame—a pretty trick, for one of his kind, but no other bit of borrowed poetry seemed sufficient to describe the wash of heat that descending from the crown of his head to the balls of his feet. "What on earth do you think you're doing?"

"I can stop, if you want," Geralt offered, though he made no move to drop Regis's hand. "It's only an invitation if you want it to be."

"If _I_ want-" Despite stern orders otherwise, Regis's fingers were even now curling up against Geralt's cheek, just above the line of his beard. He'd always kept himself clean-shaven before, and he'd been quite handsome then, of course, but if forced to choose Regis rather thought the beard suited him better. "I thought you preoccupied by the fairer sex."

"Sure, sometimes." Emboldened by the implicit permission, Geralt's soft mouth—oh, how often Regis had thought about it, and how deeply insufficient his thoughts were proving to have been—was straying inwards, depositing open-mouthed kisses to the heel of his hand. "Less people throwing rocks that way. But that's not all I like."

"I'm beginning to realize," Regis said weakly. It had been… some time, since he'd been touched like this. Not that he was usually one to deny himself the pleasure of more intimate company— _quite_ the opposite—but he hadn't the opportunity recently, between his own regeneration and his determination to save Dettlaff. And for it to be Geralt—Geralt, with his hot golden gaze and low rough voice, Geralt who'd slept at Regis's back more times than he could count and who'd come to breakfast every morning for three agonizing months smelling of the previous night's exertions, Geralt who was in every way the very model of what Regis thought a man should be...

Well, it was a lot, that was all. Quite a lot to take in, especially on top of everything else this night had already thrown at them.

"What about you?" Geralt murmured, between exploratory licks to the tender skin of his inner wrist. "What do you like?"

"A great many things," Regis said, aroused and exasperated in equal measure, and wormed his fingers under Geralt's jaw, catching him fast and tilting his face up to face him. "Yourself included, dear witcher, and you'd be a fool not to know that already."

Geralt tipped his unbandaged shoulder in a shrug. "Guessed, couldn't know for sure." Since Regis had blocked his imprecations to the first hand, Geralt turned his attention to Regis's other, dragging it to his mouth to press hot, sucking kisses to the backs of his knuckles. "Didn't mean you'd want to do anything about it. Some just like to look."

"Oh, I like a great deal more than that," Regis said, low. It was slowly starting to sink in that this was actually _happening,_ here and now. Not some dream or hallucination, nor even a wisp of wishfulness born of moonlight, but a gentle unfolding, here in the quiet dark. He'd never thought this day might come, owing to what he saw as Geralt's general inclinations and… "However—my dear, it must be said—I'm none too fond of trespass, either. Geralt. What of Yennefer?"

Far from the guilty start Regis expected, Geralt only smiled and folded his hand around Regis's smaller one, squeezing. "Yen doesn't give a shit where I put my cock when she's not around to enjoy it," he said bluntly. "Not so long as I come home to her in the end."

"How very understanding of her," Regis drawled, not bothering to hide his faint skepticism. "And how very unlike the jealous sorceress of Dandelion's tales."

Geralt snorted, nosing up the length of his wrist. "Dandelion doesn't know everything. And we've been through a lot, Yen and me. What we've got now isn't so easy to break." He pressed an apologetic kiss to the inside of Regis's elbow, just below the fold of his sleeve. "Not even for very good friends."

Ah, an explanation and warning all in one, then. And far more tactfully delivered than Regis would have credited, given his friend's usual discomfort with the spoken word. He wondered briefly on whom Geralt might have practiced his speech, and then discarded the thought as irrelevant. He had no more claim than the lady Yennefer on Geralt's time _in absentia,_ and even less desire to exert one.

"Luckily I've no interest in breaking anything, not after such effort to see you in one piece." Finally he allowed himself to touch in return, stroking first through the wonderfully wiry (and surprisingly soft) hair on his jaw, and then down, to the side of his throat. Geralt gave a low hum of pleasure and took it as the permission it was meant to be, tugging him gently but insistently closer until he was standing between Geralt's spread thighs. "Speaking of which, my dear, I hope you weren't planning on anything entirely too vigorous. I daresay after the day we've had we could both use something simple."

"Oh, do you now?" Regis could hear the smile in Geralt's voice, though his face was hidden, ducked downwards to concentrate on the stiff tongue of Regis's belt. "Is that your professional opinion?"

There wasn't much room to return the favor, as Geralt was already down to just his trousers, so instead Regis did what he could to help things along, lifting his satchel off over his head and undoing the chain at his chest. "Absolutely! There's nothing like a little rest and relaxation to ensure a speedy recovery." The gambeson swiftly fell prey to the witcher's clever hands, cast aside to join boots and satchel in an untidy heap on the floor. Regis smoothed his palms up the scarred length of Geralt's arms, enjoying the corded strength of his biceps as Geralt set to work divesting him of his frock coat. "And nothing better to ensure a good night's sleep than a good wank before bed."

That earned him a genuine laugh, head tilted back now even as Geralt's dexterous fingers continued steadily on the buttons. "Wouldn't want to argue with the doctor's orders."

Regis couldn't contain his answering laugh and therefore didn't even bother to try. "That, my dear witcher, would definitely be a first." Anticipation was fizzing through his veins, warm and sweet as fresh blood and nearly as intoxicating. Out of all of the dreadful ways he'd expected to greet this dawn, he never in all his long years could have imagined that _this_ would be the one to find him. "But if you're inclined to be agreeable, I certainly won't complain."

"Just need the right motivation," Geralt said, teeth flashing in a smile, "and I can be _very_ agreeable."

"I—oh—I'll believe it when I see it," Regis said, a little breathlessly. Both of them were looking down now, as Geralt's hands neared his waistband. The slow tug of anticipation was nearly as pleasurable as the brush of Geralt's knuckles against Regis's belly. "But I'm certainly looking forward to finding out."

"Me too." The final button conquered, Geralt reversed trajectory—damn him—and reached up to peel the coat from his shoulders, moving with a deliberate slowness that indicated a certain amount of anticipation of his own. For once disinclined to be contrary, Regis dropped his arms and allowed Geralt to tug it fully off and away. From the sound of things, it joined its brethren on the floor, but the entirety of Regis's attention was consumed by the belated realization that with the loss of his high collar, the healing marks on his throat were now on full display.

Ah, bugger.

Geralt was paying little attention to them, however. Regis didn't fool himself that he hadn't _noticed,_ but in some fractional eyeblink before Regis had even realized there might be a problem Geralt had seen, catalogued, and cast it aside as unimportant to the task at hand. The single-minded focus of witchers… or perhaps just the lack of surprise of a man who'd already made the assumption, and hardly saw any significance in having his assumptions confirmed. For all his occasional fuss and dramatics, Geralt could be tremendously pragmatic at times, and he had a very distinct sense of priorities.

Right now, his priority was clearly to catch Regis up in the clothing department, judging by the way he was even now untucking his shirt-tails from his breeches, brow furrowed in unwavering concentration. Regis essayed an uneasy laugh, sparking with nervous tension and feeling a trifle exposed from the intensity of Geralt's regard, and did his best to cover it with a quip. "I suppose I cut a poor figure in comparison to a witcher's physique."

"I think you do just fine." Geralt's hands slid under his shirt and smoothed up his back, _fantastically_ warm and sword-roughened on his untouched skin. A wordless tug, and Regis obligingly lifted his arms, allowing the final layer to be removed. Geralt gave a low hum of appreciation and tossed it aside, running his hands over chest and belly with sure, exploratory touches. "You look like you."

Which was an odd compliment, to be sure—assuming Geralt had meant it as one, more than simple observation—but it made Regis's chest warm nonetheless. Of course a witcher would understand that this was an appearance Regis had chosen, rather than one gifted to him at birth. Of course Geralt, who had his differences branded onto his skin where anyone could see, could appreciate the lure of the ordinary.

"Whereas my fine physicking is rather interfering with my view," Regis said, stroking his own palms once more up the length of Geralt's arms, stopping only when he reached the edge of the bandages. He'd fantasized about- oh, any number of things, from the appallingly sweet to the creatively perverse, but the oldest one of all was to wrap his hands around those muscular shoulders, to dig his nails into that beautiful back and... well. Some other time, perhaps. "I suppose I'll have to explore other environs."

Geralt's thumb inscribed a lopsided circle around the jut of Regis's hip, even as his other hand slid downwards, spreading hotly around the back of his thigh. His gaze was no longer directed at Regis's face. "What did you have in mind?"

"Well, you know I've always longed to travel south," Regis said demurely. Geralt chuckled soundlessly and tugged him closer still, barely needing to lean in at all to press a dry kiss to Regis's collarbone.

"Can't disappoint a gentleman," he said, and with no further warning picked Regis up as if he weighed no more than a sack of flour. Regis yelped a laugh and clung to his unbandaged shoulder for balance as Geralt knelt up onto the bed, rotated, and then dropped back onto the mattress with Regis astride his hips.

"There," he said, his eyes a lazy golden gleam of satisfaction. "Travel."

"Sometimes the shortest journeys are the most satisfying, or so they say." Regis couldn't help smiling down at him; indeed, his face felt nearly frozen that way. Luckily Geralt seemed not at all deterred by the fangs he was almost certainly flashing, or this encounter would end as abruptly as it began. "You _do_ realize I'm still wearing my boots, yes? You've only yourself to blame if there's mud all over your sheets."

"They've seen worse," Geralt said distractedly, paying a lot more attention to Regis's body than their banter. Never one to hold back once permission had been given, he was already running his hands up Regis's sides, fingers exploring the divots of his ribs. "Besides, I've got something more important to attend to."

"Oh? And what might that be?" Regis fell forward onto his hands, careful not to let his weight drop onto Geralt's bandaged chest, and Geralt rewarded him by scratching blunt nails down from nape to tailbone in one exquisite slide. Now feeling _very_ warm indeed, Regis still managed a breathless, "Perhaps you can give me a demonstration."

Geralt's lazy smile widened, flashing a bit of fang of his own. "Wish, command," he said, and leaned up on his elbows to catch Regis's mouth with his own.

Regis, to his eternal shame, very nearly blurred off the bed in surprise. In his defense, he'd allowed himself to expect all manner of things from this encounter, but _this_ hadn't been on the list.

Geralt, sensing his hesitation, broke the kiss and eased back a little, though he still held himself up on one elbow. "No?" he said.

"Yes, I mean no, I mean-" He heaved out a breath, frustrated with himself. "I mean it's fine," he said, more coherently. "You only startled me."

One ashen eyebrow climbed up. "You not do a lot of kissing at vampire parties?"

"Ah, no. It's not that. It's just-" Unable to gesture as he normally would with his hands still braced on the mattress, he gave a helpless roll of his shoulders. "I thought you'd be more shy of my teeth, is all." Especially after tonight. This wasn't the first time Geralt had run afoul of a vampire's fangs—the layers of overlapping scar tissue under Dettlaff's more recent imprecations bore silent witness to _that_ —but he was sure to be _freshly_ wary of said implements. "I, ah. Didn't wish to be rude."

"Regis." Geralt laughed silently up at him, eyes creasing softly with mirth. "I know you're a vampire. This isn't news."

"Yes, but-"

"I know who's in my bed," Geralt said, softer now, but also more insistent. "I know you, Regis. And if you couldn't scare me off when you were going rabid in a cell, you're not going to do it flashing a little fang as things get interesting."

"Well, when you put it that way," Regis said, almost blankly. It was entirely possible the emotion running through him like a flashfire was joy; it had been so long, he couldn't be sure. Rather than take the time to investigate, Regis decided instead to lean down and put his mouth to better use.

Geralt, generous to a fault, met him halfway. And oh, if he'd thought Geralt's mouth tender before, when it was merely exploring the palm of his hand, it was nothing compared to the velvet softness of Geralt's lips against his. The scratch of beard was an entirely new sensation—it had been some time since he'd taken a man to bed, and most vampires chose not to grow facial hair—but very far from an unpleasant one. And Geralt's tongue was, mm, very skilled at this particular aspect of communication, Regis was extremely pleased to discover. Not that he had expected anything different, given Geralt's proclivities, but it was always nice to confirm a theory. And while he'd had _some_ concern that Geralt's potions might have made their way into his saliva—which would have necessitated a certain amount of regrettable restraint, given the givens—the detoxicant he'd taken earlier had already worked its magic, and Geralt tasted only of the strong red wine he'd used to wash down breakfast and himself, which was a very pleasing combination indeed.

They kissed for hours. All right, so it was likely more like minutes—they were both _very_ tired—but it was several of them at least, and it _seemed_ like longer, the way time stretched out like taffy around them. There in the quiet dark of Geralt's bedroom, Regis made the happy discovery that his friend's character proved true even in more intimate pursuits: in kissing as on the battlefield, he was a study of recklessness tempered by skill, plunging his tongue past teeth too sharp to pass for human and yet kissing him so thoroughly that Regis couldn't think to scold him for the danger. And he was considerate, his hands only ever coaxing, never holding, painfully aware of his own strength despite the fact that Regis was very much his equal in that regard. His eagerness came through in other ways: the fine tremble of his muscles, the quiet serration of his breath, the unsteady rush of his pulse, a silent symphony of enthusiasm that infected Regis with their urgency and drew his blood all the hotter.

He also discovered—pleasantly, for all that he planned to tease him mercilessly later—that Geralt was very nearly _obsessed_ with his neck, lavishing it with sucking kisses and tender bites from the curve of his jaw all the way down to the crease of his shoulder. Regis would chalk it up to latent racial fetishism except for the fact that he was just as skilled here as with other oral pursuits and therefore entirely well-practiced with both, which made it more likely that it was simply a general preference and Regis had merely gotten lucky: this vampire very much did go in for that sort of thing. Especially from Geralt, who avoided the twin holes in his neck with a studied nonchalance that very nearly managed to seem accidental and was not afraid to use his own human-blunt teeth in a variety of delightful ways, with none of the usual _connotations_ another vampire would have had and seemingly just for the pleasure of watching bruises bloom and fade on Regis's pale skin.

Regis did not return the favor. Not because he didn't want to—there was, in fact, very little he wanted _more_ —but because he didn't trust himself. It hadn't been so very long ago that he had shattered himself against the bars of his own studied self-control, and Geralt had been there, too, to pick him up and put him back together again with tender, uncompromising hands. And because of that kindness, that impossibly generous gift, there was now a part of him, to Regis's everlasting shame, that remembered the faint scent of Geralt's sweet blood mingled with the rotting flood of necrophage leavings and wanted it so badly his jaw ached from denial. Not a big part of him—he loved Geralt too well to ever cause him harm—and fading quickly, thank all the gods that weren't, but not so quickly that he could press his mouth to Geralt's throat and think only of earthly pleasures.

Unfortunately.

There were other things he could do, however. Geralt's neck might have been out of bounds but his ears were safer territory, and wonderfully responsive at that. Likewise his collarbone was both mostly unbandaged and safely distant from his pulse, perfect grounds for Regis to test another theory, about how well the witcher might enjoy receiving a few marks of his own. (He owed his past self ten crowns: Geralt liked it _very_ well indeed.) His nipples—well, nipple, bandages blocking his access to the other—was, interestingly enough, comparatively unresponsive. Likely for the same reason he had next to no body hair: nearly every inch of skin had been burned or blasted away at some point or other, and what had grown back in its place had lost some of its original sensitivity. Regis found instead the places that had escaped damage—the underside of his arms, the cut of his hips, the peach-fuzz tenderness of his lower belly—and set to exploring, first with the sensitive pads of his fingers, and then with lips and tongue.

And Geralt just _let_ him, was the glorious thing. Oh, he made some token effort towards reciprocation, but when Regis impatiently shook away his hands, he only smirked and folded them behind his head, leaving Regis to his explorations. Not that he was a passive participant, by any means: he was pushy, vocal, practically purring with pleasure as he arched into Regis's touch, wherever he chose to distribute it. But he was receptive to whatever Regis wished of him, and indiscriminate with his enjoyment, reacting with equal delight to both gentle strokes and the press of teeth. He just seemed to like _contact,_ in whatever form Regis chose to provide. And he liked it best of all when Regis—carefully, so as not to reopen any of the wounds he'd gone to such effort to treat—lowered himself flush onto Geralt's chest and rubbed his face into the scratch of beard at Geralt's jaw.

" _Fuck,_ yes," Geralt groaned, sounding nearly drunk with it—prompting a laugh out of Regis, though mockery was the absolute furthest thing from his mind. "More. C'mere."

"I don't think I can be more _here_ without crushing you entirely," Regis said, even as he allowed Geralt to wind his arms about him and settle him more squarely astride. He had to stifle a groan as the shift in position pressed their cocks more firmly together. "Please recall that you are injured, my dear witcher."

"Don't care," Geralt muttered, only half-attending to their conversation. He was too busy nosing his way past sideburns to tuck his face into the hollow behind Regis's ear, inhaling a deep and luxurious draught of his scent. "Mmm."

About to reply with something that no doubt would have been entirely witty, Regis instead found himself paralyzed by an absolute lightning bolt of lust. It was just so- _visceral,_ was the thing. Unabashedly animalistic, yes, which was arousing in its own right—Regis was always much closer to his own instincts than he would like to be—but also distinctly… inhuman. Bestial without pretense or apology, as if he _knew_ he didn't need either, didn't need to hide bits of himself and make them tidy for public consumption.

As if he knew he was in bed with a monster, and felt no need to hide the parts of him that were monstrous in turn.

" _Gods_ you smell good," Geralt concluded, and pressed a sucking kiss where his nose had been, tongue flickering against salt-damp skin. "Could do this all day."

"I don't think I can," Regis said faintly, momentarily certain that if he moved so much as a millimeter he was going to spend in his breeches. The sensation passed quickly, thankfully, but left him pink-cheek and trembling, mortified as he realized what he'd said. "I mean-"

"Oh, I know what you meant." Nosing down the length of Regis's neck, Geralt hitched his hips up, grinding their pricks together with short, devastating thrusts. "You need something, Regis? You ready for my hand?"

"Ready to be out of these clothes, at least," Regis said, somewhat proud that he'd managed to get the words out at all, much less with relative steadiness. The frottage was bad enough, but the impact of Geralt's raspy voice deployed at close range really could not be overstated. "Come now, witcher, budge up. We can switch positions while we're at it."

Geralt leaned back with a frown. "Why switch? I was thinking-" And he stole a hand between them, palming Regis's cock illustratively.

_"Fuck!_ "

Geralt smirked and rubbed the pad of his thumb down the line of Regis's erection. "See?" he murmured, and did it again, and then a third time, the edge of his nail catching perfectly underneath the head. "Some of my ideas are good ones."

"And some of—oh, _gods_ —some of them are utter tripe," Regis managed, clinging both to Geralt's shoulders and the shreds of his dignity for all he was worth. "I refuse, dear witcher, to dirty up those bandages when I've only just finished with them."

"Mhm," Geralt said, watching the movement of his hand. Regis, despite his best efforts otherwise, did the same, and nearly moaned aloud. "I don't mind."

"Well, I do." With an enormous burst of will Regis managed to tear himself away, kneeling up from Geralt's hips and dropping down to the mattress at his side. He gingerly palmed his cock—gods _above_ he was hard—and turned to give Geralt the sternest look he could muster. "As the bandage-er to your bandage-ee, I think it's an eminently reasonable request."

Geralt grunted his disagreement but gave no further argument, so Regis was willing to chalk that up as a victory. Luck, more than anything; he was quite sure that his good intentions would have folded like wet parchment had Geralt been inclined to push his case.

They both took a moment to attend to their own disrobing, pants being rather difficult for even the superhuman to remove in any kind of appealing manner. In four and a half centuries Regis had never figured a way to get naked without looking like an absolute idiot for at least a few moments in the middle. There was at least some consolation to be found in that Geralt, with his own nearly a century of practice, clearly hadn't figured out the trick to it either.

Geralt, however, had the clear advantage in the fact that _his_ boots had already been discarded, thank you very much, while Regis was left to tug at his own hopelessly snarled laces. Before Regis could so much as begin to figure out what on _earth_ had happened to the formerly-tidy knots, Geralt had already stripped to the skin and was nosing impatiently at the back of his neck.

"Oh, that's... that's not helping," Regis said, a bit weakly, as Geralt sucked another bruise into the hollow behind his ear. "Geralt. That is very distracting."

Geralt only _mm_ 'd in absent agreement and insinuated himself closer, half-kneeling with one leg coiled underneath of him and the other wrapped around Regis, cradling him in the cup of his body. The lopsided angle left Geralt's erection pressed against his back, just above the waistband of his trousers. Far from shying away, Geralt grunted low in his throat and held Regis steady for another thrust, rubbing his cockhead into tender skin. His other hand stole around to Regis's front, first spreading hotly over his belly and then stealing downwards to palm Regis's erection, straining desperately at the front of his trousers.

In spite of himself, Regis let his head fall back on Geralt's shoulder, his fingers going slack on his boot-laces. " _Oh,_ " he breathed. "Oh, that's…"

" _Yeah_ it is." Geralt tightened his grip, thrusting eagerly against sweat-slick skin. "How 'bout now, Regis?" he husked into his ear. "Distracting enough for you?"

Regis screwed his face up in a scowl, though he knew Geralt couldn't see it. "Fuck you," he said earnestly, but Geralt merely laughed in his ear, gravelly and smug.

"Workin' on it." Demonstrating some of the famed dexterity of witchers, he managed to undo Regis's breeches one-handed and tugged them open. His touch was even more devastating through the thin linen of his smalls, witcher-hot and fiendishly clever. "You got any oil in that satchel of yours? You're gonna want it, with all the callouses."

Sod the laces, he could find others. Regis called his claws and cut straight through, removing his boots with two quick jerks. "I do, yes. But I've another substance in mind." Leveraging some of his own not-inconsiderable dexterity, he slipped free of Geralt's grip and stood, shoving trousers and smalls to his ankles as he went. Geralt could have grabbed him—Regis was fast, but he didn't fool himself that he was witcher-fast, especially not at the moment—but instead he inclined his head in rueful acknowledgement and slid over on the mattress, leaving an empty space for Regis in the middle.

"Think I could help with that plan?" Geralt said. He gave his cock a slow easy stroke as if to illustrate, smiling faintly. Regis kicked free of his clothes, climbed back into bed, and pulled Geralt on top of him in lieu of an answer.

Left to his own devices Geralt likely would have been more than content merely to stretch out full-length atop him and let things take their happy course, but Regis urged him to kneel astride his hips instead. He'd be _damned_ if he'd settle for a quick bout of frottage after all these bloody years. Not that this wasn't going to be quick: there was too much hunger in the air, too much too-long-denied, for it to be anything but. But Regis was determined to show at least a _little_ finesse.

When he finally wrapped his naked hand around Geralt's naked cock for the first time, Geralt made a noise that Regis immediately found himself wanting to hear every hour of every day for the rest of his life. He gave it a slow stroke, root to tip and back again, to see if he could earn another, but instead Geralt dropped chin to chest so he could watch with hungry golden eyes, and that was almost better.

(Regis could claim he was old enough to have outgrown the urge to show off for a lover, but he preferred to keep his lies to those of omission. And even he couldn't deny it was a matter of record that he liked to show off for _Geralt._ )

"As you can see, my friend, I've not your problem with callous." At the sound of Regis's voice Geralt let out a soft noise, more than a breath but not quite a moan. "But if my touch isn't smooth enough, I'd be happy to retrieve some of those oils."

Geralt grabbed him by the wrist, though only loosely; even now he was cautious not to provide any true restraint. "Don't _stop,_ " he gritted out. "Regis, c'mon."

"Now who's impatient?" Geralt gave him a slit-eyed glare, which was rather less threatening than stimulating, truth be told, especially with the helpless way his frown kept trying to collapse into a blur of pleasure. "Don't worry, my dear. I'll take good care of you."

Geralt liked that idea very much, apparently: his mouth fell open just a little, his breath leaving him in measured pants. Feeling pleased with himself, Regis shook away Geralt's tremulous grip and went back to stroking him. He couldn't decide which he liked watching more, Geralt's cock as it jumped and thickened in his hand, or Geralt's face as he slowly gave himself over to pleasure. A far cry from the acrobatic rutting of his most fevered imaginings, to be sure... but also by far the superior, in the way that fantasy often failed to live up to reality, if one was lucky enough to be in a position to compare the two. Regis might have been able to dream up the image of Geralt kneeling above him like a triumphant young god—fairly sure he _had_ , actually—but he'd never have been able to conjure the sensation of a blood-hot, silken prick in his hand, the rasp of scars against his own unblemished skin where Geralt's brawny thighs bracketed his hips. Nor would such imaginings have prepared him for the _scent,_ so thick on the air that Regis could almost taste it on his tongue: leather and horseflesh, old blood and meteorite steel, now mingled pleasingly with the herbal bite of Regis's own liniments and the musk of sweat and arousal. Geralt was always beautiful, of course, but sex had transformed him into a feast for the senses, a myriad of sensual delights that Regis couldn't help but luxuriate in even as he was supposed to be working Geralt up to the peak.

Not that Geralt seemed to mind overmuch. For all of his earlier tussling and teasing and hauling about, he now seemed entirely content to let Regis set the pace, rocking shallowly into his grip and watching the flex and twist of Regis's fingers with avid, hot-eyed interest. Whenever Regis did something particularly good he would let out a quiet little noise and shiver all over like a horse flicking away a fly, but he didn't protest if the stimulation went unrepeated, didn't ask or beg or even tell Regis to do this, or that, or harder or faster. He just… let him, as he'd let Regis touch him earlier.

Letting Regis take care of him, he realized, on a rush of something like tenderness. As Geralt had taken care of him, after his ordeal in Tesham Mutna.

The realization caused him to redouble his efforts, determined that whatever else this day might bring, Geralt would at least begin it with some small fraction of the ease and pleasure he deserved. A moment later a particularly clever turn of his fingers caused Geralt to grunt and jerk in his hand, cockhead pearling up with a few drops of eager spend. Unable to resist, Regis gathered them up with a swipe of his thumb and brought it to his lips, closing his eyes to better savor the taste. It wasn't blood, of course—biologists might call it the fluid of life, but to a vampire it was no comparison—but in his haze of arousal it was nearly as stimulating. His sense of taste was a great deal more refined than even a witcher's, of course, but it was also the _idea_ of it, the facsimile of consumption that humans so loved to fetishize. Regis had so very many appetites, after all, and Geralt stimulated every one.

Geralt let out a harsh breath, and Regis opened his eyes to find Geralt staring at his mouth with the avid hunger of a man who had either forgotten about the teeth, or truly didn't have the sense to be wary of them. Regis opened his mouth to say… who knew exactly, probably something clever, but before he could do so Geralt made another one of those intriguing noises and slid two thick fingers right onto his tongue.

Right. Lack of sense it was, then.

Regis caught his gaze and held it as he closed his lips around Geralt's knuckles—carefully, he could exhibit some caution even if Geralt seemed to have abandoned it entirely—and lapped at the rough pads of his fingers. Geralt grunted his approval and fell forward, catching himself one-handed on the mattress. This new position pressed his cock into Regis's in a single slick grind of silken heat, and quite against his better judgment Regis moaned around the thrust of Geralt's fingers.

Things went very quickly after that.

When Geralt finished he gave a moan of absolute abandon, nearly shocking in a man so habitually quiet, and yanked his hand from Regis's mouth to slap it against the mattress to steady himself. Regis was left open-mouthed, panting, clutching haphazardly at whatever parts of Geralt he could reach as Geralt ground down against him and spent in heavy, spasmodic jerks. Once, twice, thrice he spilled over Regis's belly and groin, leaving everything between them very slick and very hot and smelling so heavily of sex that Regis thought he might drown in it.

" _Fuck,_ " Geralt said when it was done. He was holding himself above Regis with trembling arms, his hot, wine-scented breath washing over Regis's face as he gulped for air. "Damn, Regis, you-"

Regis, somewhat uncharacteristically, found himself quite lost for words. He could only moan, a quiet desperate noise loosed into the scant space between them, his hips working unevenly against the lopsided weight above him. He needed- _Gods,_ he needed-

"Shh, okay, I got you," Geralt murmured, even as he staggered sideways, removing the pressure against Regis's cock. Regis grunted in protest and Geralt hushed him absently, plastering himself along Regis's side and nosing unashamedly into the sweat-slicked hollow of his throat. "I got you," he said again, and reached down to wrap his hand around Regis's eager prick.

" _Oh,_ " Regis said, the word punched out of him. He did, in fact, notice the roughness of callous, but with the way slicked by Geralt's spend discomfort was the very last thing on his mind. "Oh, that's-"

"Yeah," Geralt said dreamily. His hand never wavered, fingers never fumbled, his grip as sure and steady as on the hilt of a sword. "'s good, isn't it? Just like that."

Any other time, Regis might have been inclined to tease him for the sex-brained nonsense leaving his lips. Any other time, his breath wouldn't be washing over the half-healed sensitivity of Dettlaff's mark with every exhale, sending a convulsive shiver down Regis's spine and straight into his mindlessly straining cock. "Yes, come on, yes-"

"Easy, I got you." Geralt thumbed under the head of his cock, a vicious little flick of nail that had Regis choking on a breath that was nearly a sob, and then returned to his steady stroke before Regis had a chance to recover. "Lemme take care of you. _Fuck_ you feel good-"

"Geralt-" He could feel it coiling in his hips, an inexorable building tension like a spring wound to its limit. "Geralt, please-"

" _Sweetheart,_ " Geralt breathed into his ear, and Regis came like it was being pulled from the depths of his very soul.

###### 

Barnabas-Basil had a fine eye for luxury; the bed was big enough that even with the two of them lying at angles, they still managed not to be hanging off of any edges. Geralt was sprawled out, half-lounging against the pillows like a dissipated prince, and after wiping himself down Regis had allowed himself to be drawn back into bed with his head in Geralt's lap. He knew he should leave, allow Geralt his long-delayed rest, but as long as Geralt continued to stroke rough fingers through his hair and smell so incredibly good, Regis wasn't going to say no.

Besides. He had a mystery that as yet remained unanswered, and he suspected he'd get no better chance to inquire.

"Might as well out with it," Geralt said above him, sounding amused. "I can practically hear the gears turning in that head of yours."

"Implying I'm some sort of automaton, fit for the amusement of children? Geralt, Geralt. I believe I should be insulted."

"Bet you're great with kids, actually. Sure came in clutch with that bootblack last week."

"I'm not sure base bribery is the prescribed method of child-rearing, but I suppose I should defer to the expert." He fell silent a moment, drawing aimless circles with his fingers on the unbandaged portion of Geralt's lower belly. "There is… a question I would like to ask you, but it's rather a delicate subject."

"If you're angling for a threesome you'll have to ask Yen yourself," Geralt said lazily. "Figure your chances are pretty good, though, seeing as how you saved her life and all. She likes that in a man."

"I most certainly wasn't-!" Regis came spluttering up on one elbow, only to stop short at the sly smile the witcher was sporting. "Insolent pup," he muttered, allowing Geralt to urge him back down, though his use as a pillow was somewhat diminished by the way his belly shook with laughter. "You know bloody well I wasn't trying to broach anything of the sort."

"She's got a real appreciation for… _men of learning_ ," Geralt said, somehow managing to imbue the words with an entire ocean of innuendo. "Just something to consider. So, if not creative depravity, what's on your mind?"

"If you think that's creative you should try for a little more book learning yourself," Regis muttered, and sighed. "It's going to sound terribly insulting, I'm afraid."

"Mhm," and how a single syllable could sound so _knowing,_ Regis would like to know himself, thank you. "You want to know how I'm not dead."

"Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but yes, that was more or less the thrust of my inquiry." He paused to allow the expected juvenile interjection, but Geralt was either more tired than expected or more restrained, for he remained politely silent. "I would never wish to underestimate your skills in the witchering trade, my friend, but a true higher vampire is a far cry from, for example, even a very old and cunning bruxa. And Dettlaff is far from the least of my kind."

There was a pause. "You want the easy answer, or the one that's gonna piss you off?"

Despite the seriousness of their subject matter, Regis found himself unable to entirely suppress his smile. "How about you begin with the one and move on to the other, and I shall decide for myself how to feel about it?"

"Mhm," Geralt said again. This one sounded skeptical. "Well, for starters, he was too pissed off to be anything like useful. Like fighting a drunk toddler on a temper tantrum. If he wasn't so fucking strong he wouldn't have lasted ten seconds."

"I'm going to tell him you said that, you know," Regis said, torn between amusement and annoyance. This was the _easy_ answer? "Later, admittedly—much later—but still."

Geralt's body shifted in a shrug. "I call it like I see it."

"Lord, I'd hate to hear what you think of my skills, in that case," Regis muttered. He found himself surprisingly stung by the matter-of-fact assessment. After all, Dettlaff had quite neatly defeated _him,_ and even diminished as he was he'd consider himself more than an equal for the average witcher. Not that Geralt was average _anything,_ but still. "Aside from our little _contrempts_ with Vilgefortz, I doubt I've ever been in what you'd consider a real fight in my life."

Geralt, to his surprise, responded not with the expected teasing but with a grunt of disagreement. "No, that's what I'm saying. Dettlaff wanted to hurt me a lot more than he wanted me dead—that's arrogant. It's _stupid_. You wouldn't win in a fight against me because you wouldn't _fight_ me. You'd just kill me and be done with it."

Geralt sounded unbothered by the thought, but Regis felt rather as though his ribcage had been bisected by a blunt heavy object, which was a comparison he was somewhat more qualified to make than your average citizen of the world. " _Geralt,_ " he breathed. "You know I would never…"

He couldn't even _say_ it, but Geralt just shrugged again, the motion shifting through his body all the way down to where Regis's head was pillowed on his hip. "I mean, you would," he corrected, more like a patient professor trying to lead a student to a correct conclusion than a man discussing his own hypothetical demise. "If you thought you had to. If there was someone you were trying to protect."

All at once, Regis understood exactly what it was Geralt was leading him _to_. "You did something, didn't you." It wasn't even a question; he knew Geralt too well. "You'd fought Dettlaff once and had some measure of his abilities, so you did went and did something outrageous to even the odds. Something you didn't want to tell me about, in case it came to a fight." Geralt tensed slightly, and Regis corrected himself. "No, because you thought I'd be _upset._ Isn't that right?"

"Mhm," Geralt said a third time, and what a versatile noise it was turning out to be, because this time it sounded like _you're more right than I thought you'd be and I'm not sure how I feel about it._ "More or less."

Regis was tempted to roll over and study Geralt's face, but however much he _wanted_ it, he rather suspected that the last thing this conversation needed was eye contact. "What did you do, then, that you thought would bother me so? For that matter, _when_ did you do it? We've been rather in each other's pockets this past fortnight."

"You remember when you found me down at the docks, and made fun of me because I'd taken two days to find a measly little bootblack, and how my skills as a tracker must have gotten rusty?"

"I recall something of the sort, yes… Ah. Not so rusty, then?"

"Not so much," Geralt said, very dry. He _had_ been admirably restrained in the face of Regis's teasing; Regis should have realized there was something he didn't know. "When Yen heard I was heading to Toussaint, she sent me a letter about some mage who'd gone mucking around with witcher mutagens. Entrance to his lab was in Dol Naev'de, under the river a few miles from your cemetery."

Well, _that_ was an answer to a question he hadn't thought to ask. Perhaps if he hadn't been so distracted by Dettlaff's fate... "And he was successful, I take it, this experimenting mage?"

"Depends on how you look at it. He was trying to reverse the mutations, cure his son and make him normal again." Geralt's hand paused, briefly, his thumb rubbing restively at Regis's temple. The thought clearly upset him, though whether it was because he found the notion offensive or he wished it for himself, Regis could not even begin to guess. "Instead he made him stronger. Faster, better healing. One time he came back from the brink of death, ready to fight again."

"Ah," Regis said again, momentarily bereft of anything more coherent. After a brief but terribly awkward silence, he managed to scrape up a relatively neutral, "And so you recreated his work."

"More or less. I'm no mage, there were probably some spells missing from the process, but- yeah. Pretty much."

Regis knew a little of Geralt's history at Kaer Morhen—only a little, of course, Geralt being as habitually laconic as Regis himself was verbose—but enough to know that Geralt was far from an average witcher in more ways than one. He knew his friend had been given an additional course of mutagens when the first was completed, which stole the color from his hair and left unusual strength and speed in their place. He also knew that the process involved unbearable agony the likes of which his own fate at Vilgefortz's hands was but a momentary taste. To undergo the Trial a _third_ time, mutating himself further from the humanity that on his darker days he feared he'd already lost…

"Oh, my friend," he said, and even to his own ears he could hear the sorrow that tugged at his throat. Another sin to his ledger, and no less than he deserved. "I'm so sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about. It worked, didn't it? We're all still here. I'd call that one a win."

"Fair enough, I suppose. Still, I hope you know I never intended for any of this to happen."

"Well, hopefully at least _some_ of it." Geralt tugged fondly at a stray lock of his hair, warmth curling through his steady voice. "It's been a long day—you could at least wait until my pants are on before you start in on the regrets."

"For _this_?" Regis loaded the word with all of his considerable scorn at the very idea. "I'm not such a fool. But I am sorry for the rest of it. I made all manner of promises that seem very foolish in retrospect, and you paid the price."

"It's alright, Regis," Geralt said, but Regis shook his head and buried his face in Geralt's hip, comforting himself in the familiar smell of his skin.

"The truth is," he confessed, grateful his face was somewhat hidden from view, "that my debt to him goes beyond the bonds of all human morality. I won't say that there's _nothing_ I wouldn't do to save him, but..."

"Yeah." Geralt's hand never slowed in its slow, meditative stroke through his hair. "Don't worry. I know a thing or two about what that's like."

###### 

Sleep came for Geralt eventually, and Regis carefully withdrew and left him to it. He spent the day on the chaise in the guest room, watching the progress of the sun across the sky through the little window and listening to the bustle and noise of the estate as it went on with the day. In a way, it reminded him of his sojourn in the grave, all those years ago. It'd taken quite some time for his hearing to come back, of course, but he'd had little else to do other than lie there and listen to the villagers going about their lives. He'd known those villagers better than they knew themselves, by the time he'd been strong enough to dig himself back out.

That had actually been the reason he'd taken up as a barber-surgeon, when he'd chosen to rejoin civilization. Part of the reason, at least. Quite aside from his knowledge of the subject—which was, of course, far greater than even a very talented human alchemist could claim—the position afforded him the chance to partake of human civilization in a more controlled manner, on the edge of all their petty squabbles, their modest victories and trifling defeats. He'd been so pleased with himself, sampling of their lives like a vintner testing a barrel. Always among them, but forever apart.

And then a most unusual witcher had come crashing into his life, and that, as the bards liked to say, had been that.

Geralt ended up waking sometime in the middle of the afternoon: not quite the twelve hours that Regis had been hoping for, but longer than he'd frankly expected, given the unfinished business with the monster under his roof. The monster in question showed no sign of stirring, but that didn't mean he wasn't awake. A human might have been fooled by his stillness, but Regis could hear his pulse, and Dettlaff had been awake for over an hour. Even a vampire's senses couldn't tell him much about what emotion kept Dettlaff silent, however, and Regis found himself reluctant to speak first and likely muddle things further. If Dettlaff was choked by rage, any attempt to soothe it would only provoke him further; if it was regret, any consolation Regis could offer would seem paltry to the point of insult. And so Regis kept silent in turn, and waited for Geralt to come and render his judgment.

He didn't have to wait long. Geralt wasn't a man who put off the inevitable, no matter how unpleasant he might find the task. He rose moments after returning to wakefulness, dressed with neither leisure nor haste, and took a couple swallows of something from a corked vial. A potion, presumably, though not the one that poisoned his blood; when Regis silently rose and went to meet him at the foot of the stairs, he smelled of nothing but sleep and sweat and the lingering traces of their shared intimacy.

"He's awake," Regis said, before Geralt could ask. "He hasn't yet spoken, however."

"Fine by me. I've got a few things of my own to say."

Regis wanted to warn him… of what, exactly? That Dettlaff was dangerous? Hardly news to Geralt, of all people. That he was fragile from the loss of his family and his lover and his innocence, all taken by this horrid tangle of selfishness and pride? Regis didn't even know if that was true. Nor if he should even _hope_ for it to be true, for that matter. He wouldn't ever wish that kind of pain on someone for whom he cared so deeply, but what, then, was the alternative? That his brother was still lost to rage, deaf to all reason even after crushing defeat, nothing more than a rabid animal to be dispatched? Any way he turned there was grief. It hung in the air like a funeral shroud, and even the scent of himself on Geralt's skin wasn't enough to chase it away.

"Do you want me to stay?" Regis asked, instead. He tried to be reassured by the lack of visible weaponry, but couldn't quite fool himself: the true danger here rested not in blades but in the very real possibility that Geralt might yet withdraw his unexpected clemency. "I don't believe he could offer much threat to you in his current state, but…"

"I'll be fine," Geralt said. He looked like he wanted to roll his eyes, but was refraining in consideration to Regis's sensibilities. "Look, you probably don't want to listen in to this any more than he'd want you to hear it. How about you wait in the cellar?" A brief smile, no more than a fractional curl of his lips but made sweet by the genuine warmth in his eyes. "I've been meaning to show you the lab down there, see what you think of the setup. You're the alchemist, maybe you could take a look and tell me what stuff I'm missing?"

Regis wasn't so upset he couldn't recognize the offered distraction, no matter how Geralt might have dressed it up as a request for aid, but neither was he too prideful to ignore the favor when it was handed to him. "A great many things, I've no doubt. Are you certain you wish a full accounting?"

"After last night, I can probably afford it," Geralt said, and jerked his chin in gentle suggestion. "Go on. I'll catch up in a bit."

There were so many things Regis wanted to say. To beg, to plead, to explain, a thousand things Geralt needed to consider before he rendered his judgement… But what good would any of it do? Geralt's choice would be made by Dettlaff, and there was no action Regis could try to affect the outcome that he hadn't already taken. All he could do now was wait, and so he inclined his head in acknowledgement and took himself away before he could try anyway.

The basement underneath Geralt's villa was cool and dim, full of the pleasant smell of oak and strong red wine. Better yet, the stone overhead was thick enough that even he couldn't hear anything going on above. Whatever words—or shouts—were exchanged, he couldn't listen in even if he wanted to.

Regis closed his eyes and breathed deep of Toussaintois perfume, then went in and did as Geralt asked.

###### 

It was some time later before he heard Geralt's familiar tread on the stair. Regis stiffened, his fingers going still on the list he was writing, but he couldn't seem to bring himself to turn. When he turned, he would see Geralt's expression and he would know, and he couldn't bear that. Just a minute longer, before he had to know. Just a moment-

Geralt's boot scuffed in the doorway, a wave of warmth preceding him into the room. "Geralt," Regis said helplessly, too far gone even to beg, and then Geralt said, "He's fine," and Regis's spine turned abruptly to water.

"I mean, he's not happy about it," he heard Geralt continue, over the roaring in his ears. "But he listened. You're going to have to get him out of Toussaint and that's going to be easier said than done in the shape he's in, but as long as he stays gone I won't have to-"

Regis held up a hand. Geralt obediently fell silent—understanding, perhaps, the storm of relief that broke through him, after so many days and weeks of misery and dread.

"It's okay, Regis," he said, after a moment. His voice was soft, the one Regis had heard him use to gentle a skittish hound. "It's going to be okay," and because it was Geralt, and Geralt couldn't lie, Regis finally began to believe it might be true.

When he finally mastered himself enough to turn he found Geralt standing just behind him, studying him with a slightly wary expression of a horseman with a mare apt to bolt. Regis had to smile and so he did, uncaring of the flash of fangs. Geralt's eyes warmed and his shoulders came down from his tense hold, recognizing that the danger was past.

"Thank you," Regis said, holding his gaze. "For his life."

"It wasn't-"

" _Thank_ you," Regis repeated, over whatever foolish demurral he'd been about to make. "I won't forget what you've done for me, not for as long as I live."

Geralt didn't make the expected protest that he hadn't done anything, or that he'd just been doing his job, or any other such self-effacing nonsense. "I spoke to BB," he said instead, blatantly changing the subject. Regis had to bite down on another smile. "He's going to find a cart. Not that I'm trying to kick you out, but we're not that far from the palace, and-"

"No, you're quite right," Regis interrupted briskly. "I have no desire to press our much-abused luck further than it has already. Fortune willing, we'll be gone with the sunset."

Something flashed across Geralt's face then, the kind of there-and-gone intensity that used to presage one of his gruff withdrawals… but perhaps they had both changed in the past few years, because now Geralt reached _out,_ tracing one ticklish finger from just behind Regis's ear down to the point of his collar. "Not happy to say goodbye so soon, you know," he said softly, watching the progress of his touch rather than Regis's face. "Feels like I only just got you back."

Feeling rather too overfull to contain the tenderness brimming in his chest, Regis captured the wandering finger and brought it, in a fit of whimsy, to his lips. "Neither am I eager to make our farewells," he said, with no small degree of understatement. "But I promise, my friend, I shall return. Ah, assuming I am not _also_ subject to exile, that is?"

"Mhm, nope. As long as you leave Dettlaff at the border, you can come back anytime." Geralt cradled Regis's jaw in one broad hand and turned up his face, expression grave and sweet. "You've got a place here whenever you want."

"Your word as a gentleman?" Regis teased, and got a rare flash of grin in response.

"My word as a witcher."

"Ah, even better." Regis turned his cheek into Geralt's palm, pressing a kiss to the ball of his thumb. "This isn't goodbye, my friend. Merely fare-thee-well."

"Until we meet again?" Geralt suggested, straight-faced, and Regis shook his head and pulled that teasing mouth down to his.

It wasn't anything like the kisses they'd shared earlier, no eagerness or hunger, but something lighter, very nearly chaste. Regis had been intending to pull away, make some witticism about farewell kisses, but instead found himself a little lost in the gentle catch and tease of lips, slow and sweet enough to still even his clever tongue. Geralt seemed similarly caught up, a gentle rumble essaying from deep in his throat as his big hands kneaded pleasurably at Regis's hips. Regis, emboldened by the implicit permission, allowed his own hands to wander up and down Geralt's broad back, from his sturdy shoulders to his trim waist. Memorizing the shape of him, the smell and feel and taste of this incredible, _improbable_ man that Regis was somehow lucky enough to call a friend.

Geralt pulled away first, tipping his head down to press their foreheads together. The sweetness of the gesture caught at the back of Regis's throat, and he swallowed hard against a swell of feeling too complex to name. He'd accomplished so much, this fortnight, much of it impossible save for the intervention of the man who held him in his arms. That was a gift, a debt he could never repay. But the task that loomed ahead seemed so great he feared even to begin.

Geralt, understanding, eased away and brushed a parting kiss across his brow. "Go," he said softly. "He's waiting for you."

"Geralt," Regis said. For a moment he feared he could say nothing more, but then he looked into Geralt's dear face and found the words he'd feared to say. "What if I can't save him?"

"Regis," Geralt said back, his eyes warm with a smile. His handsome face was soft with a tenderness that needed no name. "You already have."

###### 

Regis had travelled half the world and back again, but the fourteen steps to the little second-floor guest room seemed the longest he'd ever trod. The door was closed, of course, Geralt sensibly cautious of unwary onlookers, but staring at the blank wooden frame Regis found himself unreasonably resentful Geralt had not left it open for him. If it had been open, there would be no barrier left to cross, no action he needed to take. He would already be in the room, where he belonged. He would have no excuse to hesitate.

_Coward_ , he told himself, but that was an insult that had long ago lost its scourge. Instead he thought of Dettlaff, stranded on the other side of the door, no doubt listening to his unsteady pulse as he was listening to Dettlaff's. And then his hesitation seemed like nothing but foolishness, and he reached out and pushed open the door.

From the bed, Dettlaff looked back at him. His handsome face was hollow and gaunt, as it likely would be for some time; his skin was pale as parchment and sat too thinly on his bones. He looked wholly wretched, drained of his usual verve and vivacity and absent the outsized intensity that could fill a ballroom with his presence when he chose. Regis had always thought of him as somewhat larger than life—and not only because there had been a time, not so very long ago, when he'd been the center of Regis's broken little world. Now he seemed much diminished, nearly small in the folds of Geralt's second-best blanket.

But if he seemed drained of life he also seemed drained of the rage that had so consumed him, and Regis at last allowed himself to hope that his brother might be returned to him.

"Regis," Dettlaff murmured, his beautiful voice reduced to a ruined whisper. "Oh, Regis, what have I done?"

Regis was on the bed between one instant and the next, wrapping his arms around Dettlaff's bony shoulders and drawing his head to his chest. Dettlaff fisted his hands in Regis's coat and keened, shaking with a grief so great his poor ruined body seemed unable to contain it all.

Regis pressed his face helplessly into Dettlaff's hair and shook with him, murmuring useless nonsense into the crown of his head. "Shh, hush, it's all right. I'm here, dear boy, I'm here, it's alright now."

"They're dead," Dettlaff whispered back, "they're all dead and it's my fault," and there wasn't a blessed thing in the world Regis could think to say to that, so he just clung tighter and hoped it would be enough.

It took a long time for the storm of emotion to pass, and Regis held him through every wretched minute, stroking his back and speaking as steadily as he could manage. Any reassurance he could offer seemed grotesque in the face of Dettlaff's loss, so he spoke of other things: the scent of wildflowers in the summer, the process of brewing mandrake into moonshine, a patch of riverbank he always used to visit when returning to Dillingen in the fall. Anything and everything he could think of, so long as none of the forbidden names crossed his lips.

Dettlaff calmed, after a time, and Regis found himself trailing off into silence too. He laid his cheek against Dettlaff's head and allowed himself to drowse, listening to the busy hum of a vineyard at work, the steady clang of the blacksmith's hammer, the shouts and laughter of children playing in the courtyard. Life went on, even after last night's slaughter. People still worked and laughed and fucked and sang, no matter what tragedies great and small might strike their small mortal lives. When he'd been a very young vampire and certain he knew everything worth knowing Regis had found it ridiculous, the joy that humans took in the frailty of their short-lived existence. Now, older and hopefully wiser, he found it tremendously comforting. _Life goes on_.

"Regis," Dettlaff said, after a time.

"Mmm?"

"Your witcher."

No question accompanied this bald statement, and Regis combed his fingers through Dettlaff's tangled hair, considering with no small amount of trepidation what might follow. "I don't know that I'd be so bold as to lay claim to such a possessive, but as you will. What of him?"

"I think I understand a little better, now. How you could find a mortal worthy to spend your life in his service."

Oh, the irony, it was near sweet enough to choke. How long had Regis spent in the heavy gray depths of his own recovery, wishing only for his dearest friends to meet? For Dettlaff to come to _know_ Geralt as Regis had, so that he might at last understand? And for it to happen now, like _this_ -

"Yes," he forced himself to say. "He is."

"Would you have killed for him, too?"

The question slid into him not unlike a stake through the heart: roughly, and with a great deal of splintering. He had dreaded that line of inquiry above all others, but he could not deny that it was also the absolute least that Dettlaff was owed. Regis would not become yet another to lie in order to protect his own heart, no matter how it tore at him to speak the truth.

"Yes," he said again. It came out in a grinding rasp, as if the dust from Tesham Mutna still choked him, and he cleared his throat and tried again. "Yes, Dettlaff. I would have."

"Good," Dettlaff sighed. "That's good, then."

Regis swallowed hard. "Is it?"

"Mmm." Dettlaff tucked his head more firmly under Regis's chin, exhaling slow and cool into his collar. "You're a good man, Regis."

Regis closed his eyes. "Oh, my friend," he said, low. "On that front, we shall have to agree to disagree."

###### 

**ONE WEEK LATER**

###### 

Syanna didn't turn when she heard her door open, though she'd heard the footsteps on the stairs and known she was to have visitors. "Your Highness," the guard said, bowing stiffly. "Your guest has arrived."

"Thank you," Syanna said, without looking away from the window. "You may leave us."

The guard bowed again and withdrew, the door groaning closed behind him. Only then did the man deign to approach—though he didn't, Syanna noticed with some amusement, bother with the pretense of courtesies of rank even Damien couldn't seem to shed. She'd heard a rumor that even the emperor of Nilfgaard himself could not force the witcher to bow. She didn't doubt its veracity: the man who'd stood vigil on Tesham Mutna's crumbling battlements feared neither man nor gods, and gave respect only where it was earned.

She could almost like him for that. In another world, perhaps.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as Geralt came to lean against the wall near her, his long legs crossed before him. He was turned out in the height of Toussaintois finery and therefore looked both absolutely ridiculous and utterly resigned to the fact. In his hands—ungloved, such a scandal!—was a book, a small cloth-bound thing with a little slip of parchment sticking out between the pages.

"Well, you got me here," he said, finally. She'd nearly managed to forget the unique timbre of his voice, the low pleasurable rasp like nails down her spine. "I assume there was something you wanted to say."

"Merely to congratulate you on your stunning victory over the Beast," she said, turning at last. Her expression, she knew, showed nothing but polite approval. "What a fight it must have been! I'm almost sorry to have missed it."

One ashen eyebrow climbed his forehead. "If you hadn't, you'd be dead now and we wouldn't be having this conversation."

She pursed her lips into an artful moue. "Why, Geralt. Are you saying you wouldn't have protected me?"

He studied her for a long moment, expression unreadable. Syanna had made a long and profitable career out of knowing men better than they knew themselves, but Geralt was a cipher even her practiced eyes couldn't decode.

"I think we're both lucky I didn't have to," he said at last.

She almost could have laughed at that. It's what she got for trying to play courtly games with a witcher, she supposed. Especially one as clever as him. "Prettily said," she told him. "Toussaint may make a diplomat of you yet."

His answering expression was a muted but otherwise perfectly discernible version of a child presented with some hated vegetable. "I wouldn't hold your breath on that front."

"No, I don't think I shall." Syanna shook her head, tossing away the idea. "Anyway, amusing at this is, I truly did only wish to offer my most sincere congratulations on your victory. I know that my sister is going to have some sort of ceremony, pomp and medals and somesuch, but I hope you might be willing to accept my own small token of appreciation."

The look he gave her was gratifyingly wary, if for all the wrong reasons. "It's not a kiss, is it?"

The urge to laugh grew stronger. "No, witcher, you needn't fear on that front. I know not to tread where I'm unwanted."

He looked like he wanted to say a few things to that, but decided to refrain. Just as well; it would be a shame to have gone to such lengths to arrange this scene only to throw him out of the window.

"No, my gift to you is a more tangible thing, and hopefully more inspiring of sentiment. Consider it a token of my gratitude." She paused, let it unspool. "Or a trophy."

The small spark of teasing that had warmed his golden eyes died, like a candle blown out. He knew, then. "Witchers don't need trophies to know a hunt is done."

"For this, I think you will make an exception," she said, and handed him the ring.

It was a pretty little thing, intricate but sturdy enough for a man's hand. Over the past few days she'd come to know every loop and whorl, but in truth she'd recognized the markings already, as Geralt must have known she would. Whatever metal it was cast from was not one she'd seen before—and she knew her metals, for jewels and blades alike. It glinted oddly where it sat in Geralt's broad and calloused palm, catching the mid-afternoon sun with an otherworldly sheen. Which was fair enough: it was not, if her supposition was correct, of _this_ world at all.

"How did you get this," Geralt said. His voice had flattened out even further, a low rasp that sent the hairs on her neck standing straight up.

"My dear sister generously granted it to me, as a reminder of my unlikely survival." Undeterred, Syanna smiled back at him, a thin bladed thing that contained no pretense of warmth. "I thought you might like to return it to its owner."

"Its owner is dead," Geralt said, though not as if he was attempting to convince her of his sincerity. Merely a conversational feint, not unlike the thrust of one of his swords, serving the action back to her to see what she'd do.

"Oh, not _Dettlaff,_ " she said airily. "Of course I meant its _real_ owner."

Geralt was very still, now. But it wasn't the stillness of the startled deer, frozen in the brush and hoping to avoid notice, but rather the unnerving stillness of a predator, studying its prey with a considering eye.

"Is that what you mean," he said, after a moment.

Geralt might resemble the wolf they named him, just now, but Syanna was damned if she'd play the part of the deer. "Dettlaff was never much of one for jewelry," she told him. "And I got quite a good look at his hand, what with all the assaulting and attempted murder and such. He wasn't wearing a ring—not that night, not before. But you know who was? Your harmless little herbalist friend, the one who spoke so passionately in Dettlaff's defense, and whose anger you so feared I would rouse."

"If you know why I warned you not to bait him," Geralt said evenly, his gaze never leaving hers, "then you know you're playing a very dangerous game."

"And if you've paid any attention at all, witcher, then you know those are the games I most like to play."

For a moment she thought he might yet hold out, a witcher's steely determination carrying the day—but after a moment he looked away on a sigh, and she knew that she'd won. "What do you want, Syanna?"

"An answer," she replied promptly, not allowing herself time to savor her triumph. "An _explanation._ My sister trusted you to slay the beast, and you betrayed that trust with a lie."

"You should be careful what you say about betrayal," he said evenly. "Considering."

It almost sounded like- But no. He spoke only of Dettlaff. Didn't he?

"It's my life you left on the line, witcher," she told him, tipping up her chin. "I deserve to know why."

The angle of his head indicated his doubt of that assertion, but he answered readily enough nonetheless. "Told your sister, back at the beginning," he said. "Dettlaff isn't some bruxa or katakan. A higher vampire literally _can't be killed_ by mortal means. I might have been able to stop him for a while, but he'd be just as likely to come back fifty years from now and lay waste to the city." He tipped his head, something like amusement now tugging at the points of his cheeks. "He seemed the type to hold a grudge."

"And so instead, you simply set him free?"

"No, I made a deal with him, _then_ I set him free." Geralt studied her, a spark of malicious amusement in his golden gaze. "Why? Worried he'll come back to take his vengeance?"

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but _yes,_ I am rather! As you said, Dettlaff doesn't let things go." Grievances, possessions, companions—whatever the oh-so-mild herbalist might think, Syanna knew she'd done the only thing she could, running from him as she had. He would never have let her go of his own volition, not ever. She hadn't erred in that, at least.

Other decisions might, in retrospect, have been somewhat… ill-considered. But not that.

"Well, that's where the deal comes in." Geralt made himself comfortable against the wall, arms folded across his chest and his boots crossed at the ankle. "In exchange for his life, Dettlaff has agreed not to cross the border into Toussaint for as long as Anarietta sits on the throne."

"For as… ah." It was funny, Syanna thought distantly, that she hadn't seen it before. The slip of paper between the pages of Geralt's book—she knew that parchment. Knew the angle of the tear and the hint of bold slanting writing that could just make out at the top. _This time you will_ \- She knew, as apparently did Geralt, precisely how that sentence ended. "I suppose you think yourself terribly clever."

"Well, it's no coup d'etat, but it'll do."

Syanna looked out the window rather than bear another moment of his self-satisfaction. "I wasn't planning on finishing the job," she lied. No, not quite a lie: her inclinations in that direction were nothing so well-formed as a _plan_. "You needn't fear on her behalf."

"Let's call it a reasonable precaution."

Oh, but he was awful. She hated, _hated_ the keen perceptiveness of his gaze, the terrible calm of his voice, the revolting smugness of his expression. All she'd wanted was to score a few points, to make him even half as afraid as she'd felt on the empty courtyard with Dettlaff's claws aimed at her throat, and instead-

"And what happens," she said silkily, wanting only to draw some blood of her own, "if I go to my dear sister, and I tell her that your victory was a lie? Do you think she'll believe you then, if you try to convince her of my guilt?"

"Nope. Way I see it, she already picked you over her whole fucking kingdom, what's one witcher?" Syanna opened her mouth to protest the truth of that statement—as if Anarietta had ever cared a fig for her welfare, as opposed to her own challenged ego—but Geralt moved on before she could get a word in. "Worst case scenario, she chops my head off and it's not my problem anymore. More likely, she throws me in jail for treason and leaves me to starve to death in the mines."

"You seem remarkably calm at the prospect of your demise," Syanna said, around the leap of her pulse in her throat. "Do you care so little for your own life, as you do for mine?"

"I think it doesn't matter to you one way or another," he said. "It won't help you take her throne. Not if you expect to live out the week." He shrugged. "Either way, my job is done."

She stared at him for a long moment. For the very first time in her life, she hadn't the faintest idea of what to say.

Geralt seemed to realize it, softening by increments under her uncomprehending stare. "Look, you can live and die by your hatred if you want," he told her. "I'm not going to stop you. If vengeance means that much to you, I'm not going to pretend that anything I could do would do more than just slow you down. At the end of the day, I'm just a witcher."

Syanna almost managed to laugh at that. "What a fool I'd be, to believe you to be 'just' anything," she said, but found she hadn't the taste for the game. "Go on, then. Tell me. What does the great Geralt of Rivia suggest I should do?"

"Well, I'm not an expert, but you could consider forgiving her," Geralt said mildly.

This time she did laugh, though it was a small, bitter, tired thing. "Forgiveness is not a subject with which I am overly acquainted, witcher."

"Yeah, well, I'm not much of a vintner either. We all have to start somewhere." He offered her the book in his hands. "See if this gives you any ideas."

Syanna gingerly took the book from his hands. It was a cheap, aging thing, the shoddy binding starting to give way at the seams and the pages smelling faintly of mildew. "And what shall I find in these pages?"

"Time eats away at memories," Geralt said, instead of answering. "Distorts them. Take it from someone who's got a couple lifetimes under his belt: sometimes we only remember the good. And sometimes, only the bad." He tipped his shoulder in a shrug. "Maybe that will give you perspective."

"And just why," Syanna said, unable to tear her eyes away from the book, "do you think I need that?"

"Well, that's up to you to decide," Geralt said, and straightened away from the wall. This audience, it seemed, was at an end. "But you loved each other, once. Maybe try remembering that, along with everything else."

Syanna said nothing, and Geralt didn't either. From the corner of her eye she saw him nod briskly, as if he'd expected no less, and move away toward the door.

"Geralt!" she called, before she'd quite realized she was going to speak.

He paused, hand outstretched to the door, and turned to give her an inquiring look.

"Thank you," she said. "For my life."

"It's my job," he said, something rueful tugging at the corner of his mouth. "But you're welcome."

After he was gone, the heavy tread of his escort echoing down the steps, Syanna forced her numb fingers to pry open the cover of the book. It fell open to the page Geralt had bookmarked, her note an accusatory exclamation among the brittle pages. She flipped it hastily away, resolving to burn it at the nearest opportunity, and traced her fingers over the spidery, half-faded handwriting it revealed.

_I tutored the girls in Nilfgaardian today. Syanna applies herself so, though she has great difficulty memorizing new vocabulary. Lady Anarietta seems more gifted in this regard, yet also prone to impish behavior. When she thought me out of earshot, she called me a 'bloede kusse.' She and Syanna laughed so hard they almost choked._

Syanna closed the book and cradled it to her chest. And then, alone in the room with nothing but her regrets for company, she bowed her head over the musty pages and finally allowed her tears to fall.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [sorrelchestnut](https://sorrelchestnut.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, come say hi!


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